Method 8: Social networking and method 9: chat & IM

I don't know how people have all this time to do social networking! While I have a personal facebook account, often I will just go to the news feeds to see what others are doing and don't post anything myself. Other times I will carry on a dialog with a friend or relative.

I don't like chat. It interrupts what I'm doing and often continues on far too long when I have a particular online mission to pursue. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have a phone call.
Of Course, my chats have been personal, not library related. I can see that if a library has enough staff to use chat or IM for reference, it can be a good thing. However with only two fulltime employees and four part time, scheduling doesn't allow for a person dedicated to IM reference. We are revising our Internet guidelines, which didn't allow chat -- since so many social networking sites allow it, the guideline about chat isn't enforcible.

I will soon build a library page on Facebook. I almost feel obligated to do so, as well as establish a Twitter presence for the Library. However, again, the time all of these social networking sites require is tremendous. It is difficult just to maintain a current website, even with the YA and Juvenile items taken care of by those particular assistants. Weighing the pros against the cons, I still see I need to set up a social networking library account. I definitely don't think library and personal accounts should be mixed. It is only recently that I have set up two email accounts, using the new gmail account for library business. However, some business email still gets routed to my personal email account just because it was the only contact account for too many years.